


How Is A Raven Like A Writing Desk?

by sweetNsimple



Category: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahame-Smith
Genre: All far in the past, Barnes&Nobles, Humor, M/M, Many of them, Modern Setting, Suicidal Tendencies, Suicide Attempt, They do not bang, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 19:53:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1562063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He meant only to get a look at them, to brand their scents into his psych, so that he might find them again later.</p><p>At first sight, however, he was struck dumb at what was before him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Is A Raven Like A Writing Desk?

“And what am I to do with this, Reynolds? It is far too late for me to _enjoy_ my popularity and I certainly get no part of the wealth, what do you _want_ of me?”

 

Abe (Lincoln) Smith frowned at the  line of Grahame-Smith novels before him, damned if he knew why that  high-pitched  voice sounded so very familiar, but intrigued nonetheless. It hardly spoke above an aggravated whisper, yet he heard it quite well  above the constant hum of activity in the  Barnes&Nobles bookstore. 

 

“Your appreciation and awe would be a lovely start,” answered a second unknown voice. “Then we can round off the night with a Thank-You blowjob and maybe continue trying to kill each other in the morning, you miserable, petulant twit.”

 

“Oh, yes, because that tempts me to my knees to be at your service.”

 

“I would hope so. This is far too public a place to try to kill you now.”

 

“Well, forgive _me_ for your actions!”

 

“By God, man, that was over a century ago!”

 

“You haven't let me die since, you bastard!”

 

Abe carefully patted his sides, tensed, and cursed Henry to Hell and back. This was not the long leather overcoat he preferred when carrying weapons, it was, in fact, merely a cashmere sweater that Henry had forced over his head and onto his torso. It wasn't even the button-down cardigan he liked when he  _wasn't_ carrying weapons. 

 

He cursed Henry again, just for good measure. All in his head, of course. He did not want to draw the attention of the bickering couple haunting the Classics section. Nonetheless, he was very tempted to curse Henry – very loudly – just so the other vampire could hear him from the cafe upstairs.

 

As casually as he could, while the two men continued to negotiate who owed whom fellatio, Abe wandered around the low bookshelves to circle towards them at the other end of the downstairs. The  shelves were higher, giving way to non-fiction shortly after their position.

 

He meant only to get a look at them, to brand their scents into his psych, so that he  might find them again later.

 

At first sight, however, he was struck dumb at what was before him.

 

“Poe?”

 

The tiny, dark-haired man, all dressed in black with fingerless gloves on his hands, waved irately in his direction. “Yes, yes, this is where you can find Poe, in all of  his _postmortem_ glory, as no one can appreciate the arts as they come.”

 

“It wouldn't be the first time,” answered – none other than – Edgar Allan Poe's companion, Reynolds. Most likely even the same Reynolds Poe had told Abe about the eight months before he died. “I can only imagine that Vincent Van Gogh would weep to see his incredible prosperity now.” This man was of average height, which was to say that he was a scant few inches taller than Poe, and wore a dark attire equal to Poe's. His features were plain but for his hair, which he had appeared to dye black and then tipped in scarlet red, cut into a rebellious Mohawk.

 

Reynolds  followed his last statement with a wicked light in his eyes. “I imagine Doyle would weep as well, now that I give it thought.”

 

“It amazes me that you have thoughts to give,” Poe muttered bitterly, flipping through _Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems_ with a huff. 

 

If the man had a retort, he lost it when he looked directly at Abe. For the first time since Abe had caught sight of them, the man drew in a long, careful breath, his face drawn into  suspicion . “By God, are you who I think you are? I thought you were  _murdered_ !”

 

Poe's head snapped up so quickly as to make Abe wince in sympathy. “ _Murder_ ?” he said, as if on the scent of something delicious. He turned his head from his companion to Abe, taking him in for the first time.

 

The book dropped from his hands.

 

“By all things unholy,” Poe whispered. “Abraham Lincoln, is that you?”

 

“As your friend thought of me, I thought _you_ dead,” Abraham said in lieu of an answer, held in shock. “My old friend, how can this be? I heard of your death! It was – is – surrounded by mystery and half-truths. I thought for certain that you had been poisoned by the very creatures that inspired you.”

 

“I thought you were out to kill every vampire you ever came across,” Poe retorted, still wide-eyed and face slack in disbelief. “And that your body was rotting in a tomb with your beloved family.”

 

Abe let the pain of those two words,  _beloved family_ , ebb till it died before he spoke again. “I am a killer of my own kind now,” he answered simply.

 

Reynold's body tensed beside Poe's. “That does not put me at ease, Mr. President.”

 

“I have not been the president for a very long time, and you should not be at ease while in my presence.”

 

“You mean to kill us,” Poe said more than asked. His face lit up like a child's at Christmas. “ _Finally_.”

 

Abe frowned. “No, that is not my reason for speaking with you.”  Not anymore.

 

“ _Damn it all to Hell_.”

 

Reynolds rolled his eyes and drawled to Abe, “This man has tried everything to get himself killed and God mocks him by making each and every attempt fail.”

 

While Abe was very concerned with his old friend wanting to die, his curiosity forced him to ask a different question than the one on his mind. “Killing oneself can not be  _that_ difficult, how could he have failed without once having success?” But then, Henry.

 

Abe studied Reynolds and wondered if this vampire had gone to the lengths of which Henry had that first decade to keep Abe, not alive, but in existence. Abe had tried every scheme that came to mind, no matter how brainless or hopeless, only to be thwarted by Henry at every turn. One time in particular, he had lit a fire in the hearth and tried to lay within it in hopes of perishing not unlike MacNamar had been forced to by Henry himself and with his assistance. Between lighting it and moving to wards it, Henry had already doused it and him in icy cold water from a nearby creek. The cowardice that had stopped Abraham from suicide in his lifetime had not been apparent in his death, despite Henry's spoken wishes that it had.

 

“ _I would show you a death worth exploring,”_ he had said one day, Abraham staring out the window into the darkness from his chair in an ever failing attempt to ignore Henry, _“if only I could trust you not to run off in search of your destruction.”_

 

That trust, Abe remembered sourly, had not been earned for a decade and a half. Time had truly lost all meaning to Abe in the cottage Henry had had him hidden away in. In his fury and determination to end it all, he had not kept count of the days, certain it would not matter, and he had never asked of the news. It had been a very long time before Abe had realized that any time had passed at all.

 

“When I was young enough for the sun to end me,” Poe retold with residue rage, “it would storm every time I stepped outside. And when it was not storming, the clouds were heavy.”

 

“For a good century?” Abe asked, disbelieving.

 

Poe leveled a hard glare at his companion. “I was not always able to leave the damned hellhole this bastard had me caged in.”

 

“It was no hellhole, you melodramatic bastard, it was a _manor_ with plenty of space and more than enough to keep you busy for the few years it should have taken you to accept your death.”

 

“I wanted my destruction!”

 

“Can you believe he tried to stake himself once?” Reynolds suddenly asked of Abe, who stood there, unsure of what to say. The question and attention was so abrupt that Abe merely stared at him. “He missed his heart completely and laid on the floor, cursing each of God's heavenly angels.”

 

Abe's eyebrows shot up. “I, too, tried to stake myself in my early years. I did not get quite that far.”

 

No. He had been half way through carving a stake out of one of the dining room chair's wooden legs when Henry had happened upon him, took it and every other piece of furniture out of the cottage, and held a blazing fire more than ten miles from where he kept Abraham. For five years, their mattresses had lied on the floor and they had used pillows for seats on the hard-packed floor of the underground rooms Abraham had come to realize Henry built into all of his hovels.

 

Earning back the right to sit in a bloody chair had been one of the most embarrassing moments of his young immortality, even more so than earning back his right to bathe alone (though he found that it really was impossible to drown a vampire).

 

“I knew it!” Poe exclaimed. “You were forced into this non-existence as well! With your training, though, you _must_ have been able to kill your captor.”

 

Abe considered that very carefully. “It... was never a thought of mine to kill the one who changed me.” He wanted to hit himself for not having thought of it. Of course, he had tried to kill Henry before. In his _human_ life. If the times they sparred counted, then he had attempted to end Henry more times than any man could count. If not, then... He supposed that the whole of his being bound during Henry's care could count as one, and his attack after the death of his son Willie would be his second.

 

In death, however, he had spared no thought to getting rid of Henry for the sake of getting rid of himself. He had been so focused on ending his own existence that Henry had become something like a house fixture or a specter. He was not a thing that Abraham could kill, but was merely a spectator to Abraham's growing and then receding madness.

 

“How fortunate for that person,” Reynolds said. “I must watch my back constantly with this one, and with how creatively dark his mind is, I must watch all of my other sides as well.”

 

“I will get you one day,” Poe vowed solemnly. Then smiled at Abraham. He looped their arms together and started for the escalator. “Come, tell me what has happened, what did happen, how were you brought back? Was it Harry?”

 

“Henry,” he corrected distractedly. “How I came to be here is not nearly as interesting as the story you must have. The world has come to have more theories for your death than for how I lived my life, and that is truly astonishing.”

 

“If nothing else, I can enjoy how mystified I have left many in my passing away,” Poe noted proudly. “Sadly, the reality is far less exciting. I bedded the moron behind me, and awoke to my clothes gone with his in their place. He would not tell me where he had put my attire, and so I was forced to go about in his. It is a 'kink' of his, if you will, to see me as a possession he can dress at his own will.”

 

“Oh, bloody Hell, Poe, I do not see you as a p-”

 

“Unfortunately, on my way back to my home, I was set upon by two men sent to kill me for what I knew of the coming war and the vampires' place in it. It was a shame, as I was planning to tell you within the week. All turned out well, nonetheless. Or, I suppose, well for everyone else but you.”

 

“A fool's dose of vampire blood?” Abe guessed.

 

“Pardon?”

 

“The men, did they force upon you a fool's dose?”

 

“Ah, yes, that they did. I died, but did not stay dead, for this imbecile brought me back.”

 

“I exist to regret it,” Reynolds muttered.

 

These two were so miserable in each other's company, Abe thought, that, certainly, they would kill each other before the turn of the _next_ century. How they had managed for the first was far beyond him to understand.

 

A familiar figure awaited them at the top of the escalator, dark eyes going over Abe's company before settling blankly on him.

 

“I see you have found an old friend,” Henry said once they were united. “A very old friend.”

 

“By God,” Reynolds gasped, which seemed to be a favorite comment of his. “You are _still_ alive?”

 

“Ah,” Abe exclaimed dryly to Henry. “He is one of _them_.”

 

“Them? Who?” Poe asked.

 

“This is not the first time one has questioned Henry's continued existence,” Abe clarified. While the exact words Henry had used, all that time ago, to explain vampirism to Abe were lost, he still remembered it all. It took a vampire of tremendous will to outlive three or four hundred years. Three or four hundred years of endless existence while the rest of the world continued on and aged, changing and not changing all at once, such a curse that Abe shuddered to think of it. True, the history he had witnessed fascinated him still, and literature was ever expanding while journals were easier to come by and cheaper to own, of these things that made not dying a bit more bearable.

 

While the exact date of Henry's birth was unknown, Abe had estimated him to be four hundred and fifty years of age. And while vampires were solitary creatures, and no correct history of their existence could be kept, Henry was widely known and had outlived many half his age.

 

Reynolds appeared to have seen a ghost. The thought entertained Abe for a moment, the idea of a vampire fearing such a thing as another creature who had died and not passed on, before he turned Poe towards the cafe by the tangle of their arms.

 

“Abe,” Henry called out after him, face taught in what Abe had learned to be betrayal. “We should not separate now,” he said, voice tight. Reynolds was edging in closer, circling him like a cat would an unknown object that had entered into their territory.

 

He merely smiled with great innocence at Henry. “On the contrary, we _must_ separate now, for I have much to discuss with my old friend while you your avid fan.”

 

If Henry had been any less of a gentleman in control of himself, Abe knew he would have hissed after them as he and Poe curved a path to the cafe.

 

They made their orders – a cappuccino for Poe and a black coffee for Abe – before claiming a table for themselves and discussing all that they had done in the past century. Poe was not in the least surprised by Abe's involvement in civil rights and any wars that had threatened the freedom of any person. Abe chuckled warmly as Poe described his international tour of the darkest places known in history (and quite a bit not known), as well as his calmer times hidden away in nature as he wrote poems and novels he refused to publish.

 

“If I can get no proper credit for my own work, then I see no point to it,” he had said disdainfully with a sniff.

 

Abe was surprised by the lack of Reynolds in any of Poe's stories.

 

“He was there.”

 

“Where?”

 

“Everywhere. Everywhere I was. Just like your Henry. Which, might I add, continues to surprise me. I remember the once I mentioned two women lying together and you were shocked by such a thing. Yet, here you are, smelling of another man and sharing looks like lovesick fools.”

 

Abe _had_ occasionally been sharing looks with Henry across the library, Reynolds and him having settled in the New Releases. That Poe had noticed made Abe endeavor to not be caught doing it again.

 

He failed spectacularly within the next minute as he checked the state of Henry's temperament by the stoic expression on his face.

 

Poe snorted and whipped out an iPad. Abe twitched at the sight of it, which Poe saw as well.

 

“Oh, come off it, Abraham, this is the twenty-first century, the age of technology. Surely, you have adapted.”

 

“I have adapted to some things,” he admitted reluctantly.

 

“Do you even know how to use this?” Poe asked, turning the iPad towards him. Abe found before him a Facebook page under the name _Upon A Midnight Dreary_ , which made him believe that this was, in fact, Poe's own Facebook page.

 

He was not as surprised as he felt he should have been by the fact that the man had posted many original poems and short stories, despite his earlier vehemence against publishing any of his new work.

 

“Do you eve know what this _is_?” Poe asked when Abe said nothing. “Have you ever used a social network before?”

 

“I have not, for I have not felt the need to. Any acquaintances I make, as few as they are, I contact personally by mail or phone.”

 

“So you know how to use a phone?”

 

He nodded. “I do.”

 

“What kind?”

 

Abe frowned. “A phone is a phone.”

 

“No, a phone is not a phone, phones are not people, they are not striving for equality, there are phones and then there are _phones_ , now what kind of phone do you use?”

 

“It is a phone!”

 

“Is it a smartphone?”

 

“It is prepaid.”

 

“You have eternity at your fingertips, a shared wealth of yours and your boytoy –”

 

“I beg your pard-”

 

“And you go around, carrying a _prepaid_ phone. Does it get internet?”

 

“By God, man, I do not remember you being this obsessed in life!”

 

“That is because I can not get drunk in death!”

 

They sat across from each other, glowering.

 

Abe was the first to smile, Poe the first to laugh.

 

“Are we quite sure we have lived for so long?” Abe asked quietly through the snickers. “I feel like a boy again, suddenly.”

 

“You mean a fool.”

 

“Yes, that too.”

 

Poe looked past him. “It appears as if they are done now.”

 

Abe glanced towards the New Releases and found Henry and Reynolds already inside the cafe. Henry, already having had finished his drink, came directly to their table while Reynolds put in his own order.

 

“I hope all has been going well,” Henry said more than asked, moving his chair from its rightful place to next to Abe without once scraping it on the floor and casually sitting down. One hand slipped beneath the table and bit into Abe's thigh punishingly before soothing over the spot.

 

Abe chuckled into his coffee.

 

“We could hear you ladies cackling from half way across the store,” Reynolds said as he sat vertical from Poe, not moving any closer as Henry had. The hostility between the two was near tangible, and yet Abe also noted that, without even being next to each other, there was a comfortable knowing between them, such as Abe knew that his arm was attached to his shoulder.

 

They were a pair, brought together by something that strongly resembled hatred and love all at once and Abe could not quite name it.

 

“That was an insult to ladies,” Henry retorted.

 

Poe gaped at him. “ _That_ was an insult.”

 

“This is all an insult,” Abe said. “We are not ladies, and to insinuate so simply because we were conversing with humor is to enforce stereotypical thinking. To be insulted by being called a lady says more about your masculinity than you would believe.”

 

Henry swiped Abe's half-finished coffee and drank deeply as Reynolds and Poe stared at him. “We have taken every cause to enforce equality, so that every man, child, and woman is treated with the rights deserved to them,” he explained once he was done. “To victimize anyone for anything as common as gender, color, or religion is to allow victimization.”

 

“That is to say that... you are feminists,” Poe realized slowly. He considered them, and then glared daringly at Reynolds. “I swear by all things unholy, you will keep your mouth _shut_ and your humor to yourself.”

 

Reynolds, for the first time since Abe had met him, actually appeared contrite.

 

“We are products of a different time,” Henry admitted, giving some leeway. He gave Abe the empty cup back and then settled back in his chair, pressing his side to Abe's from shoulder to knee. “What is next on the agenda?”

 

~::~

 

Because Poe and Reynolds had not yet found a place that held their fancy long enough to settle into, Abe could only exchange phone numbers with Poe before the tiny man left with his lover.

 

“We have eternity to run into them again,” Henry said as they watched the pair board their flight to Canada, tone suggesting that eternity was still too soon to see at least Reynolds again.

 

Abe watched the airplane soar away, caught in emotions he could not make sense of. Not till Henry wrapped his arms around him and dragged him into the privacy of the junction of his neck and shoulders.

 

Henry whispered to him, “To see a friend you thought dead in a life where you thought you would have no friends must have felt like a blessing to you.”

 

Abe realized that to be the truth. It had been a blessing, no matter how strange Poe was, had remained to be after all of this time. Just like then, it had been hard for Abe not to like the man, despite the odd relationship he had with Reynolds, his suicidal tendencies, or his sober state.

 

He stayed hidden against Henry's flesh as a great many people hurried around them, a stray thought here and there seeping into Abe's mind that he did not pay attention to. He was content to stay there for awhile as Henry soothed his hands down his back.

 

“This sweater,” Henry announced suddenly into his ear, “is very soft. Do you like it?”

 

“It is a sweater,” Abe muttered. “I would have rather had my overcoat.”

 

“Or your old-man cardigan.”

 

“Go to Hell, Henry.”

 

Henry hummed and carded his fingers through Abe's hair. “One day, Abe, but not this one. Not quite yet.”

 

The heavy contentment in his voice solaced Abe.

 

“Shall we be off?” Henry whispered into his ear.

 

Abe pulled back only enough to press his mouth to Henry's jugular vein and was warmed by the pleasured sigh he got for it.

 

“We shall.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Poe wrote on both.  
> Have a lovely day.


End file.
